Abstract:
ABSTRACT
Substance abuse has become a major challenge in secondary schools in Kenya. A study carried out in
Kenya observed that 20% of adolescents aged between 12 and 22 years smoke cigarettes, 9% smoke
bhang while 23% drink commercial beer and spirits. This is the age in which most youths are in
schools and colleges. The aim of this study was to find out the incidence and extent of drug abuse
among secondary school students in coast Province, Kenya. This information is useful in developing
specialized educational programs for drug abuse in Kenya. The objectives of this study were: to
determine various substances commonly abused by students, assess the prevalence of substance
abuse in secondary schools, determine the factors that contribute to substance abuse, students‘
behaviour related to substance abuse and identify the factors that influence students to abuse drugs.
An expost-facto research design was employed. The study population comprised of a public
secondary schools in coast Province. The sampling was done using stratified sampling to obtain
different categories of classes, and in school. The classes were chosen from the strata using purposive
and simple random sampling methods. Systematic sampling was then applied to obtain the required
number of students, where every tenth student from the admission register was selected. One
counselling teacher from each sampled class was selected to participate in the study. The total
number of respondents was 267 students and 14 counselling teachers. A separate questionnaire for
students and another one for counselling teachers were used to collect data. The instrument‘s validity
and reliability was enhanced through a pilot study in two classes within the school and were not
included in the main study. Face validity and content validity was used by the researcher engaging
colleagues and experts in the school of education. The questionnaires were administered to the
respondents by the researcher assisted by four research assistants. The data obtained was coded and
analysed using the SPSS programme for windows. The statistics used for this exercise were mainly
percentages, pie charts and bar graphs. The key findings showed that peer pressure, school and
